


Thirty Licks

by Watergirl1968



Series: Voices In The Bone [8]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Consensual Kink, Eremin - Freeform, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, M/M, Smut, Spanking, Voices in the Bone AU, consensual blindfold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 04:18:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4125265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Watergirl1968/pseuds/Watergirl1968
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armin Arlert has a sweet tooth. So does Caesar, his horse. When the stable manager, Eren, catches Armin feeding sweet treats to Caesar, he's not very pleased. Armin has to spend an evening proving to the farrier, who is also his lover and soulmate, how very sorry he is...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jam Cookies

**Author's Note:**

> A little bit of sweet, kinky fluff for my VIB eremin...if you're new to this AU, it's canon world, but plot-diverged (same world, but different storyline). Armin and Eren are 21, rising through the ranks of the Survey Corps and their childhood friendship has ripened into love.
> 
> This fic is for well-hello-bright-eyes. xoxo

"What," Armin asked softly, "have I got in my pocket?"

Caesar already knew. The big brown pawed at the floor of his stall, nickering softly. He tossed his head, and then bent it down for the slight, blond soldier that rode him.

"Hmmm," Armin smiled. He removed his hand from his jacket pocket and unwrapped a dinner napkin, which held a malt cake, drizzled with maple.

He broke off a small piece, placed it onto his palm and offered it to his mount. Caesar's soft lips tickled, gobbling at his hand.

"Is that good?"

Armin took a small bite of the dense cake, appropriated from a strategy dinner inside of the Rotunda, and groaned. " _Walls balls_ , that _is_ nice! Damn…"

He held the rest out to his horse.

Caesar was not a pretty horse. He had rather a wide head, overlarge ears, and his coat was an uneven molasses brown. His mane and tail were of the same hue, and he had a thickness to his frame that earned him the compliment 'sturdy' on a good day.

Armin and Caesar had been paired up when Armin had joined Levi's squad, six years prior. Armin had been a lightly-built youth; no more than a bit of fluff on Caesar's broad back. Armin's saving strengths at that time had been his intelligence and perseverance; the physical power and stamina he had lacked, Caesar made up for in abundance.

Caesar wasn't a willful animal; nor was he proud, nor high-strung. At eight years of age, he was the senior equine soldier in the Survey Corps stables, and he was the herd leader. He lacked Louis de Soleil's fire. He didn't have Bismarck's size. But he had a high degree of social intelligence and he knew when and how to move the mounted unit.

And, he had a sweet tooth.

Armin squished his face against the soft, brown nose. "That was tasty, wasn't it?"

"What did you give him?"

Armin and Caesar gave nearly identical yelps. Armin turned to see Eren, leaning against a pillar; his tall, athletic frame backlit by the butter yellow glow of the stable's safe lamps.

"Aha!" and then, softly, "a treat?"

Eren dislodged himself from the pillar, walking along the row of stalls. He reached a hand up, scrubbing Caesar softly between the eyes. The horse butted against his hand, evidencing the utter trust that all of the animals placed in Eren, who had worked hard to become their farrier, and managed the Squad's stable in partnership with Sasha Blouse.

"Did you have an apple?" he asked Caesar conversationally, "or maybe a turnip?"

He patted the sturdy neck, ignoring Armin. "Or maybe, you got a syrup cake, again?"

Armin bit his lip, peeking at Eren through the blond fringe.

Eren's aqua eyes flicked to his lover. For a strategist, Armin had a terrible poker face.

"You need to stop that," Eren remarked. "his teeth are soft as it is. You'll rot them."

"He works hard. He works even when we're here in camp, you know. He communicates with the other horses. Keeps them all together. He deserves a treat now and then."

"I see," Eren smirked. "I'll be sure to pass your observations along to the farrier."

He reached out, snaking an arm around Armin, pinned him against his side. He bent his head, capturing the pink mouth. 

"Aha! Molasses cake. I knew it," He deepened the kiss until the sweet taste sharpened with ardor. 

"No more cakes," he murmured, smacking Armin's round backside. "I mean it."

__________

The Survey Corps had spent much of the winter studying maps that they'd found in the abandoned rotunda, and fitting the maps as best they could, to territory scouted and documented outside of the Walls.

One rainy afternoon, Levi's advisors found themselves at odds over a map. Recon Sergeant Jean Kirschstein had identified the map as depicting a region southwest of the Walls. Marshal Third Class Armin Arlert wasn't so sure.

A debate had ensued. Levi had tilted his chair back onto two legs, crossed his arms and listened.

"Look, Armin!" Jean Kirschstein stabbed a long finger onto the map, exasperated. "Here's the river's elbow, the delta and the three valleys. I'm not wrong," he said conclusively, fixing Captain Levi with a scowl.

"Armin?"

Marshal Arlert tilted his head, running a hand along his jawline where a fine blond fuzz had asserted itself after five days without a straight razor. 

"Likely," Armin concurred. 

" _Fuck sakes_ , just say 'yes', Arlert. Would it kill you to agree with me every now and again?" the big Sergeant growled.

"I deal in probabilities," Armin answered evenly.

Jean Kirschstein had been right. Armed with the map, the Survey Corps had set off to explore. The region contained arable land, suitable for farming, but it seethed with Titans. None as sinister as the mangler-type titans that had originated in Shangun Prison; nor as massive and formidable as the iconic monsters that had breached the walls. 

However, their sheer numbers had the Survey Corps doubling back on itself well before nightfall. Armin and Caesar rode flank, the strong brown horse directing and stabilizing his herd mates. Caesar cantered forward in the ranks, and to the rear again. He moved without Armin, when the latter shot off his back and into the treetops; with Armin when his rider landed back in the saddle, connecting twice and missing once, causing Caesar to wheel around and fetch him off the ground.

When they'd returned to Survey Corps Headquarters, it had taken hours to debrief Erwin. The Commander listened with interest, assimilating the reports, taking notes. In due time, he'd motioned to his clerk, who had disappeared and then re-entered with a pot of strong black tea, and sweet biscuits.

"Thank you," Levi nodded curtly, his shark-grey eyes meeting Erwin's, indicating that the Commander's offer of tea was somewhat overdue.

"Please," Erwin gestured to the plate of sweets, "the entire box got dropped by the baker's boy, so they're broken to bits, but fit enough for the Survey Corps, apparently."

They were cookies, or at least, they had been. Double shortbreads, fused with strawberry jam and glazed with almond icing. Each one would have been the size of Kirschstein's palm.

Armin's  mouth watered. He thought of Caesar, frothing and coughing as Sasha had covered him with a blanket, calming him enough to drink.

He slid a cookie off of the plate, wrapped it up and stuffed it into his pocket.

__________

Caesar had been resting, swaying softly beneath his blanket, when Armin had approached. The keen nostrils quivered, and Armin was treated to a feisty prodding that nearly knocked him sideways.

"Hey," he snickered. "only a little of this is for you." He lowered his voice conspiratorially, "It's got jam…"

The shortbread melted in his mouth, so buttery and delicious that he nearly swooned. " _Maria's Tits_ , that's good."

He broke off a small piece, palming it.

"Armin Arlert!"

Armin's hand jerked, the piece of cookie flying into the stall.

"Armin!"

Oh, this was bad. It was the worst possible look he could see on Eren's face. Anger, mixed with _disappointment_.

"Armin, seriously?" Eren turned, marched down the stable and into the small office at the end of the barn where he and Sasha kept a battered desk, two stools and their precious stack of journals.

"Eren, wait…Eren…" Armin trotted after Eren, brushing crumbs from his jacket. He and Eren almost never fell out. They argued, they sniped at one another, they debated. But a bitter, abrasive exchange between the two was almost unheard-of.

"Eren. Eren, I'm sorry…" Armin's tongue went sideways, scrubbing jam from the corner of his mouth.

Eren looked, not at Armin, but at the wall opposite. "How many times, Marshal?"

"Eren…"

"You're undermining me, and hurting Caesar. I could write you up for this."

Armin was taken aback.  _"What? Why?_ You're going to write a ranking officer up over a _cookie?"_ Armin's eyes blazed. 

Eren stood. "Inside this stable, the farrier holds rank. Over you. Over the Captain. Over the Viceroy herself, if it comes to it."

Eren leaned against the old desk. "How's about, instead of a citation, we'll settle for an honest night's work and thirty licks?"

Armin cocked his head. "You…"

"Work with me tomorrow night. Here."

"Doing what?"

"Doing what I ask," Eren cracked a smile.

Armin exhaled. "Fine…just…I'm sorry, okay? Can we not fall out?"

__________

After tea time the following day, Eren had given Sasha a silver piece and urged her to take Connie to the canteen for potato pancakes, salt fish and cold beer.

"Armin's going to help me," Eren had explained.

"What's Armin know about horse teeth?" Sasha had asked, baffled. Eren had just chuckled.

Armin had turned up, white shirt and brown uniform jacket, to find Eren bared to the waist, suspenders trailing.

"Strip down," Eren nodded. "It's time for you to learn how to clean his teeth."

Armin had helped Eren to fasten Caesar to his stall. Eren murmured soothingly, his broad hand maintaining contact with the horse's body. He had a small switch, which he oiled with a fresh cedar essence.

"That smells nice," Armin remarked.

"The Commander uses it to calm the horses and teach them routines. They associate it with comfort, and safety,' Eren replied, touching Caesar's nose. "Easy, old man. Here we go."

Eren used the pressured spray from the siphon to irrigate Caesar's mouth, flushing out grass, hay and likely, bits of tea biscuit.

Fascinated, Armin looked over his shoulder. Eren's steady hands worked efficiently. His broad back was warm, where Armin touched it. 

_So this…this was the path Eren had found; a way to channel his rage, and pain, and uncertainty. He'd begun to find his place in the world, as a horseman; and something other than a titan-shifter._

Armin's train of though was broken as Eren turned, grabbing a twelve inch rasp.

"What you gonna do with that?"

"It's called 'floating'" Eren explained. "We file his teeth, as needed. To remove rough spurs."

With that, Eren's hand, and then his forearm, vanished into Caesar's mouth, moving gently. "Ah, okay."

"You're going to file his teeth now?"

The blue-green eyes twinkled. "Nope. You are."

Armin swallowed.

"Here," Eren instructed, "Stand on this step stool." Eren placed his hand on top of Armin's. Put your hand inside, gently."

"Eek…" Armin turned his head a little as the warm, heavy mouth swallowed his forearm. Eren's lips were against his ear. "Relax. Feel that sharp point?"

"Uh-huh."

"Okay, now we're going to file. In a nice, smooth motion."

Eren stroked the big brown's cheek. "Good job, old man," he soothed.

Armin's heart was pounding as he placed the rasp gently against the tooth spur.

"Don't be tentative," Eren pressed up against his back. "Firm and even."

Armin's brow furrowed in concentration. "Does it hurt him?"

"No. Eren's hand joined Armin's. "Just like this…see?"

"Okay," Armin breathed. "okay…"

When the treatment was completed, Eren irrigated Caesar's mouth again. "Good job," he patted the flank.

Armin watched curiously, arm covered in saliva and bits of hay, bare chested, hair pulled into a pale knot. "What now?"

"Now, we clean Crickit's teeth," Eren grinned.

__________

Armin was breathless, standing under the cold sting of the outdoor shower. Eren scrubbed him with a handful of abrasive soap, laving away the muck from the stable.

Armin's arms went around the young farrier, scrubbing his back, under his arms, and across his broad shoulders.

All in all, they'd treated five of the horses, mucked out the stalls, and bedded down the animals for the night. 

Armin shivered under the spray, pleased with himself. He'd come to the stables, shoulders tight and head full of worry. He'd spent the last few hours in the moment, with Eren, learning how to care for Caesar. The change of pace had refreshed him. He pressed against Eren; his lover's warm skin a sharp contrast to the cold water.

He lifted his face to the spray, parting his lips for Eren. Eren kissed him slowly, drawing a soft sound from Armin, and his cheeks hollowed.

"That was an honest night's work," Eren observed, his hand sliding down Armin's supine back to cup his bottom. "But you still owe me thirty licks, I think."


	2. Sweeter When It Stings

Armin hunched in the middle of Eren's narrow bed, in the loft above the stables. Eren's room was curious; on nearly every surface of the whitewashed walls, Eren Jaeger had written words. At first, words that had given him trouble: reliquish. sequential. epiglottis. Afterward, terms related to his studies. Horse anatomy. Then, notes for the veterinary examinations. Little quotes. Notes. Notes about the young Marshal crouched on the bed, whose legs had grown long and coltish; whose voice had deepened but remained lyrical. Who'd never be able to grow a full beard. Whose hair bleached to cornsilk in the summer months. Who constantly misplaced his eyeglasses.

Armin crouched, still and wary. Eren had blindfolded him.

Armin felt a dip in the bed, in front. Eren sat, shirtless and wearing pale grey sleep pants, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands.

"You look so wary," he said softly. "like a cat in a strange place."

"It's strange not being able to see."

"What did I cover your eyes with?"

"The cotton scarf you wear. Around your neck."

Armin inhaled deeply; the sweet musk of Eren's skin clung to the scarf. Sweat sharp, it caused a sweet stirring in his belly. He felt a puff of breath on his cheek.

"Turn your head this way," Eren encouraged. Armin did. Something soft, ticklish. Eren's hair. He buried his nose in it.

"What does that smell like?"

Armin inhaled. He saw windmills, fields of lazy blue lobelia. Drowsy children on a hot summer day.

"Home," he whispered, awed a little by the simple realization. "Your hair smells like _home._ "

Eren's head shifted, and Armin felt the rough stubble of Eren's jaw. A soft rasp as Eren's face moved along his, and then, Eren's lips, sampling his. Coaxing. Eren's kisses were incredibly gentle, yet radiated a moist heat.

"What does a kiss remind you of?" Eren's lips moved against his.

Armin gasped. There had been a moment, at Moss Lake. They had been eighteen. The moment had been singularly remarkable, for it had occurred in the bright afternoon sunshine washing off the lake and mottling the field where they'd stopped to picnic. 

On that summer day, there was a kiss which had burst, wild as the berries they were eating, until they rolled in the long grass, gasping and wriggling and digging their fingers into clothing, crying out with pleasure as their limbs locked, the skin-on-skin friction delicious. It had been the first time they'd made love, as men. Their sharing of heart, mind and body could no longer be put down to adolescent experimentation, or to soldier-comfort. Armin loved Eren, in every sense of the word.

A salty tear slid from beneath the scarf.

"Mine," said Armin simply.

He became pliant then, allowing Eren to caress his limbs, lay him down on the bed, stretched-out and supine.

Eren lay beside him, the comforting warmth of his athletic body against Armin's flank. 

Eren's large, broad hand, wormed with bite-scars, trailed slowly up and down the length of Armin's spine. 

 _" Books"_ he recited, _"are good enough in their own way but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life.”_

Armin chuckled. "Oh, really?"

"That's from a poet, from thousands of years ago," Eren affirmed. "You're not the only one that reads things from the Rotunda Library. Robert Louis Stevenson."

"Who?"

"Hah," Eren smirked. "Don't know _every_ book in there after all?"

He ran his warm hands over the crest of Armin's backside, down his hamstring, to tickle behind the knee before drifting back up, over the curve again, up his spine, to graze his neck. Armin shivered deliciously, shifting a little.

Eren spoke: "If I'd never noticed things around me…not just with my eyes…but with all of my senses," Eren continued, "I'd never have excelled with horses. Found a way to be useful, beyond those first years. They did so many experiments on me," his young voice cracked wearily, "Sometimes, I'd listen to a single bird song, or the unique gait of each horse that passed by the lab window, or sample the taste of ginger. Anything to distract me from the pain."

Armin fumbled blindly, squeezing Eren's forearm.

Then, he felt Eren's warm, delicious mouth sucking at the skin behind his ear, tongue tracing the hairline behind his neck.

"Oh, sweet pixie," Eren whispered, "don't _think_ so much…that you forget to _feel_ …"

Armin's lips curved in a smile. The sweet memories Eren had already coaxed forward, simply by binding his eyes, were gift enough.

Eren rose, and Armin heard shuffling, the sliding rasp of clothing. No. A belt. He lay his head down on the bed, belly down and arms loosely arranged over his head. He felt the smooth, pungent length of leather against his cheek.

"Do you know what it is?" Eren asked.

"Yes," Armin's small pink tongue poked out, wet his lip. "it's your belt. The one with the rose buckle."

"Yes."

The leather snake trailed, with tantalizing slowness, across Armin's shoulder, down his back until it rested across his naked bottom. The implication caused gooseflesh to ripple and rise, and Armin squirmed a little.

Eren had slid off of the bed, onto his knees, his face inches from Armin's. He grazed the button nose with his own, tongue flicking sensually against the parted lips. Armin pushed his face forward, seeking to deepen the kiss, but was denied.

"That's about six," Eren teased. "six licks. By my count, you've got about twenty-four more coming!"

Armin laughed. "Kiss me."

The full, sunburned lips of the young farrier grazed his own. This wild, beautiful young man.

"No," Armin chided, "properly…"

A sudden surge against his mouth, wet, possessive, suggested that Eren's own ardor was rising.

Eren kissed him; rhythmically, deeply, tongue teasing and fucking the little pink mouth until it gaped, open and hungry. 

Armin trembled now, the teasing weight of the belt draped over his buttocks inflaming him. He squirmed, his erection throbbing into the bedding, maddened at the lack of touch, except for Eren's hot, clever mouth trapping his own.

And then, Eren's whisper in his ear: "Were you bad?"

Armin opened his mouth; no words, only a husky, horny little sound.

"Were you? Did you do something you're sorry for?"

Armin's bare feet kicked against the pillows.

"Yes!" he gasped. What was Eren asking? What would he do? Armin knew that this delicious game fit into the unspoken language of their bedding: the way Eren's jaws would clamp onto his soft nape of his neck when they fucked, Eren's hands trapping his wrists, pushing apart his thighs, smacking his taut bottom and growling, _"Hold still…"_

A wet spurt dampened the sheets beneath Armin's writhing belly. "Oh, gods… _oh_ …"

Eren picked up the belt by it's buckle, wrapped it slowly, so that a foot of soft leather dangled free.

An image sprang to Eren's mind; Armin being the first to plunge into Moss Lake on a spring morning, the surface still paper-crisp with ice, and then rising to the surface shrieking, the intense cold flashing his pale skin ice-hot, his face elated.

_Crack!_

Armin yelped, arched, and emitted a sound that was part-cry, part-laugh. Eren sucked in his breath, watching the sweet red stripe appear across the gorgeous buttocks, bending to lick and lap at the soreness, kissing, laving and murmuring. He nipped the ruddy skin gently.

"All done?"

If Eren was speaking words, Armin barely heard them. His mind, his soul radiated stinging stars of feeling; no thought, no agenda, no stress - just spurs of light that had burst across his bottom like beestings, softened into a prickly ache between his legs. He panted, undulating on the bed. It was so delicious…he'd misbehaved in the stables, and now the tanned young farrier had taken his belt to the offender.

"No," it broke from his lips, "not done…"

_Crack! Crack!_

Armin cried out, jolting off the bed, writhing so that Eren had to hold him still as he rubbed his lips against the sore flesh, drawing his tongue along each stripe, flicking and licking at the seam of his lover's bottom until Armin arched, twisting into the sensation, and he might have begged Eren for release.

Eren rolled him over, shoving the scarf up to expose Armin's eyes.

The world swam, and then Eren telling him he was beautiful, _such a good boy now…_

Eren pushed the coltish legs apart, dipped his head and licked a searing, wet stripe up the curved, pink cock. Armin cried out, his belly fluttering and clamping as the clever tongue licked him again, from root to shell-pink tip. His hands fisted into the chestnut hair, and he bucked upward, burying himself inside of Eren's hot mouth.

He came, bucking and squirming, his mind a delicious, black-velvet blank.

Silence.

Heartbeats.

In the afterglow, a sweet, nostalgic heaviness washed through his limbs. _The sea,_ thought Armin, _dwells within all of us; it's tides ebb and flow in the blood._

He lay, still and peaceful, in the shelter of Eren's embrace. Eren smiled, perhaps a touch proud that he'd been able to bring Armin back to himself, out of his worries, and to a state of sweet peace.

"That," he murmurs against the sweat-salty skin, "was thirty licks. I counted."

__________

Armin smelled like a cedar forest. He'd taken a scarf and drizzled it with Erwin's horse-training oil, and stood in the paddock, some distance from Caesar. The big brown had approached him, and Armin had trotted a little ahead, until Caesar was chasing him around the paddock, trying to nip the scarf off of his head.

 _If you love him, play with him,_ had been Eren's simple advice. _Spend time with him. Exercise him._

Armin scooted to the right, tripped and went down in a heap, laughing. Caesar ambled up, nipping at the blond hair, tugging on his rider's harness.

Armin scrambled to his feet, grabbing the bridle, pressing his face against Caesar's warm cheek.

"Who's my old man?" he murmured. "I love you."

 


End file.
